Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-01-05
THE NEW SOUTH.
Mr.. HenrysW. Grady's Speech at the New
England Dinner.

Mr. Henry:W. Grady's Speech at the New
i England Dinner.
| The speech..of Mr.. Henry W. Grady, one
of the editors of the Atlanta (Ga.) Con-
stitution, at the dinner Wednesday evening
dec. 22nd) of the New England Society In
New York, was the feature of the occasion,
aud the best, according to the Sun, that has
been delivered in New York in many years.
| When MIR. Grady arose to speak he was
received with rafting cheers. He was
he first out-and-out Southerner to be in
vited to dinner of the New England
Society, and he spoke for ''The New South"
| With warmth and frsnkness. He was re-
pcatedly interrupted by the cheers of the
New Englanders. Among other things he
| said:
"1n speaking to tho toast with which you
have honored me accept the term, The
| New South as in no sGuse disparaging to
the old. Dear to me, sir, is the home of
ny childhood and the traditions Of my
Jeople. There is new South, not through
protest against the old, but because of new
conditions, new adjustments, and, if you
please, new ideas and aspirations. 1t is to
his that l address myself / ask you,
gentlemen, to picture if you can the foot
sore soldier who, buttoning up in his faded
tgray Acket ths parole which was taken,
testimony to his children of his fidelity and
faith, turned his face southwark from Ap-
pomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as
ragged, half-starved, eavy-hearted, enfee-
bled by want and wounds, having fought
| to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun,
| wrings the hands of his comrades, and lift
ing his tear stained and pallld face for the
last time to the graves that dot the old Vir-
ginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow
and begins the slow and painful Journey
What does he Gnd-lst me ask you, who
went to your homes eager to find all the
welcome you had justly earned, full pay
ment for four years. sacrifce-what does he
6nd when he reaches the home he left four
years before? He finds his house in ruins,
his farm devastated, his slaves freed, his
stock killed, his barns empty, his trade des-
sroyed, his money worthless; his social sys-
tenn, feudal in its magnifcence, swept
away; his people without law or legal
status, his comrades slain, and the burdens
of others heavy on his shoulder. Crushed
by defeat, his very traditions gone, without
money, credit, employment, material, OF
training-and, besides all this, confronted
| with the gravest problem that ever met hu-
| man intelligence-the establishing of
| status for the vast body of his liberated
| slaves-what does he do, this hero in gray,
| with heart of gold? Does he sit down in
sullenness, in despair? Not for day.
Surely God, who had scourged him in his
prosperity, inspired him in his adversely!
As ruin was never before so overwhelming,
| never was restoration swifter. The soldier
| stepped from the trenches into the furrow;
horses that had charged Federal guns
marched before the plough, and fields that
ran red with human blood in April were
green with the harvest in June; women
reared in luxury cut up their dresses and
made bresches for their husbands, and with
patience aud heroism that fits woman al
| ways as garment gave their hands to
work. There was little bitterness in all
this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevail
ed. Bill Arp struck the keynote when he
| said: well, killed assmany of them as
they did of me, and now | am going to
work. Or the soldier, returning home
after defeat and roasting some corn on the
roadside, who made tha remark to his CONF
rades: You may leave the South if you
want to, but am going to Sanderville, kiss
my wife, and raise crop, and ii the Yam
KEGS fool with me any more l will whip 'em
again. | want to say to Gen. Sherman
who is considered an able man in our parts,
though some people think he is kind of
careless man about fire-that from the
aud beautiful city; that somehow or other
we have caught the sunshine in the bricks
and mortar of our homes and have builded
therein not one single ignoble prejudice or
memory.
But what is the sum of our work? We
have found out that in the general summing
up the free negro counts more than he did
as slave. We have planted the school
house on the hilltop, and made it free to
white and black. We have sowed towns
and cities in the place Of theories and put
business above politics. We have chal-
lenged your spinners in Massachusetts and
your iron n-makers in Pennsylvania. We
have learned that the S400 000, 900 annually
received from our cotton crop will make us
rich. Then the supplies that make it are
home raised. We have reduced the COM
mercial rate of interest from "a to 6 per
cent, and floating per cent. bonds. We
have learned that one Northern immigrant
is worth fifty foreigners, and have smooth
ed the path to Seuthward. wiped out the
place where Mason and Dixon's line used
to be, and hing out our latch h-string to you
and yours. We ehave reached the point that
marks perfect harmony in every household,
| when the husband confesses that the pies
which his own wife cooks are as good as
those his mother used to bake, and we
admit that the sun shines as brightly and
the moon as softly as it did before the
war; We have established thrift in city
and country. We have fallen in love with
work. We have restored comfort to homes
from which culture and elegance never de-
parted. We have let economy take root
and spread among US as rank as the crab
grass which sprang from Sherman's cavalry
camps, until we are ready to lay odds on the
Georgia Yankee as he squeezes pure olive
oil out Of his cotton seed, against any
Down-Easter that ever swapped wooden
nutmegs for flannel sausages in the valley
of Vermont. Above all, we know that we
have achieved in these piping times of
peace fuller Independence for the South
than that which our fathers sought to win
in the forum by their eloquencs or compel
on the field by their swords. 1t is rare
privilege, sir, to have had part however
humble, in this work. Never was noblsr
duty confided to human hands than the up
lifting and upbuilding of the PROSTATE and
bleeding South, misguided, perhaps, but
beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave
and generous always. In tue record of her
social, industrial and political illustration
we await with confidence the verdict of the
world.
"When Lee surrendered-I don't say
when Johnson surrendered, because un-
derstand he still alludes to the time when
he met Gen. Sherman last az the time when
he determined to abaudon any further pros
lecution of the struggle'-when Lee sur
rendered, I say, and johnson quit, the
South became, and has been since, loyal to
this Union. We fought hard enough to
know that we were whipped, and in par
feet frankness accepted as final the arbitra-
msnt of the sword to which we had appeal
ed. The South found her jewel in toad's .
head. The shackles that had held her in
narrow limitations fell forever when the
shackles of the negro slave were broken.
Under the old regime the negroes were
slaves to the South the South was slave